RAMÓN LULL

The paths by which the Lover seeks his Beloved are long and perilous. They are populated by
considerations, sighs and tears. They are lit up by love.
The Lover wept and said, "How long will it he until the darkness of the world is past, when the paths to hell will be no more? When will the hour
come when water, which flows downwards, will change its nature and mount upwards? When will the innocent he more in numbers than the guilty?"
The Beloved asked the Lover, "Have you remembered any way in which I have rewarded you for you to love me thus?" "Yes," replied the Lover, "for I
make no distinction between the trials which you send and the joys."
Love is the mingling of boldness and fear which comes through great fervour. It is the desire for the Beloved as the End of the will. It is this
which makes the Lover like to die when he hears someone sing of the beauties of the Beloved. It is this through which I die daily, and in which my
will dwells forever.

The Book of the Lover and the Beloved RAMÓN LULL

Upon rushing home to Umbria from Outremer, Francis of Assisi found that an insidious disease had infected the
Order of Friars Minor. Some friars sought to modify the strict vow of poverty both for individuals and for the Order as an institution. Others wanted
to formulate a complex Rule which would establish a hierarchical authority amongst the Franciscans modelled upon regular monastic orders. Yet others
smarted under the simple and sometimes harsh living conditions of the brothers. The example of Francis commanded loyalty and many of his early
disciples recognized the spiritual roots of his strictures, but he realized that he could not preserve the original purposes of the Order by sheer will
alone. Even whilst laying down firm lines, he withdrew from the administrative affairs of the Order and found refuge in profound contemplation. His
irrepressible cheerfulness and unwavering humility held him back from any tendency towards severity. But he knew that for human beings who have
distinguished themselves in the world by dress and separated themselves from it by modes of living, compromise with possessions leads to false
authority and pretence. Francis hoped that his brothers would stand by their moral light alone, and so he resisted formal governing
structures.

Even in his lifetime Francis lost on every issue. Whereas his biographers sang the praises of the simple life
and became ecstatic over his charmed relationship with nature, the deeper purpose of his sojourn to Outremer escaped them. The last years of his life,
a culmination of all his ideals, were ignored as an embarrassment and almost suppressed. Although many were responsive to his rejection of worldly
involvements, his fervent spirituality and his moral clarity, few recognized his ability to join the chivalry of divine knighthood with the
troubadour's love in spiritual witness. Rather than being an erratic episode in which Francis failed to achieve martyrdom, his visit to Acre and
Damietta demonstrated his courage, fearlessness and tolerance. His contemporaries could not readily comprehend his devotion to Christianity, his
submission to the church, and his unqualified respect for human beings as souls. Only through a firm understanding of the last could the first two be
grasped. Seven years after the death of Francis of Assisi, a man was born who could show a spontaneous appreciation of the work of Francis and whose
life came to mirror that of his mentor, in spirit if not in externals.

Ramón Lull, sometimes called Ramón Llull or Raymundus Lullus, was born in 1232 at Ciutat de Mallorques (later
Palma) on the island of Majorca. Majorca had been a Muslim possession for three centuries when, in 1229, James I of Aragon, just twenty-one years of
age, led the Catalan armies in a victorious invasion of the island. Lull's father, a wealthy citizen of Barcelona, made the crossing with James I and
soon amassed a great deal of property in Majorca. Lull was born into a family familiar with luxury, comfortable with royalty and surrounded by diverse
cultures and religions. Long after the control of Majorca had passed into Christian hands, Muslims constituted a majority of the population. For
several centuries Jews and Muslims had lived together peacefully in the Western Mediterranean. Whilst Sufi mysticism flourished in Andalusia, the
Kabbalah was studied throughout Spain and North Africa. Ramón Lull grew up amidst this rich diversity, received the education of a knight, frequented
the court and became an accomplished troubadour. James I planned to assign Majorca to his son, James II, and appointed Lull as his companion and
possibly his tutor, and eventually his seneschal. Lull travelled with the prince throughout the federation of Catalonia-Aragon and visited Castille and
France. He evidently learnt much about life and the politics of the time, but his main concern seemed to be the captivation of beautiful ladies with
his attentions and his songs. His efforts were frequently rewarded, and even his tolerant father began to worry about the aimlessness of his
life.

In 1257 Lull married Blanca Picany and soon fathered two children. Nevertheless, his royal travels allowed him
the same range of activities he had always known, and his home was mainly a base of operations for him. His luxurious and hedonistic living continued
until he was thirty years old, when he was permanently changed. One evening he was busy composing a love-song to some Majorcan lady, alternately
jotting down rhymes and looking up to hum the tune he was using. Suddenly there appeared before him in what had been blank space an overpowering vision
of the crucified Christ. Terrified, he threw himself on his bed and slept. The next evening, no sooner had he sat down to complete the song than the
vision appeared again. He did not want to draw the conclusion vividly etched in air. For four nights in a row the vision repeated itself with
undiminished and compelling clarity. Finally, Lull capitulated. Whilst the vicissitudes of his life were yet to begin, the struggle in his soul was
over. The message was accepted: the unbounded love he had lavished upon the world was henceforth to be given to the Lord.

Lull's love of life matured into an unfailing idealism and informed practicality which fused to make him a
steady optimist. Having resolved to devote himself to spiritual service, he asked in what way he might be worthy. Confident that the divine light
embraces all who seek it, his concern now was to render his life one continuous redemptive offering, and for this the only commensurate sacrifice was
that of himself. He was determined to be a missionary who sought the path of faith that may lead to martyrdom. Whilst Lull was ready and at times eager
to die for his Lord, he saw no value in antagonizing those whose beliefs were not his own. Like Francis, he respected each human being as a soul and,
like Francis, he saw in teaching and exemplification the true fruition of Christian witness. Rather than escape into some glorious rapture, he wanted
to become a fearless beacon of truth as he knew it. Upon reflection, he found it odd that most Orders were involuted, preferring to preach to their own
kind rather than travel forth into the world with their "good news". Lull was impressed by Dominican programmes, but the primitive Franciscan
Spirituals, the beleaguered minority most loyal to the lines laid down by Francis, appealed more strongly to him. In addition to his willingness to die
as a witness, he resolved to write books that would show to any open mind the fundamental truths of Christianity, and to establish colleges that would
train missionaries in the art of honest persuasion. Yet he found himself wholly unprepared for such serious work.

Three months after his transforming vision, Lull joined in celebrating the newly established Feast of St.
Francis, where the local preacher movingly recounted his total surrender and renunciation of all possessions. If Lull had been tempted to dwell in two
realms, spiritual and worldly, the thought fled from him. He returned home, set aside enough of his property to support his wife and children, sold the
remainder and distributed the proceeds amongst the poor, and, as if to symbolize an unqualified break with his past life, donned the garb of a pilgrim
and left Majorca. He spent a year visiting shrines, including the church of St. James in Santiago de Compostela, once visited by Francis, and perhaps
Montserrat. By the time he returned home, his mind was set upon learning Arabic and Latin. For nine years he did little else, and his linguistic
brilliance was matched by his intensity and humility. Dressed only in the coarse cloth familiar to the Franciscans, he astonished his former peers who
were willing to attribute his change of life to madness. His intensive study of Arabic did not please the church hierarchy. Some local Muslims were
impressed but others were sufficiently alarmed that one clumsy attempt was made on his life. During these nine years he immersed himself in Islamic
spirituality, especially the Andalusian Sufi traditions, and in the Kabbalah. When he finally felt himself ready to be of service to God and to
humanity, he was forty years old, somewhat late for someone about to become a missionary, but he was now accomplished in Latin, Arabic and
Catalan.

Whilst pursuing his studies, he had often gazed on Mount Randa, dominating the horizon with its forbidding
presence, and it came to symbolize 'the mountain of the Beloved'. Now he climbed the slopes and found a little cave near the summit. There he sat in
contemplation and prayer, hoping for some clue or guidance concerning his future. On the seventh day, according to the biography he dictated late in
life, "as he was engaged in contemplation, with his eyes turned towards the heavens, there came to him in an instant a certain Divine illumination
which gave him the form and order wherein to write the books that he had in mind against the errors of the infidels". Immediately he descended the
mountain and began to write. He produced his formidable Art Abreujada d 'Atrobar Veritat (The Art of Finding Truth), written in Catalan and
translated into Latin. Synthesizing the instrumental logic of al-Ghazzali, the geometrical symbolism of the Kabbalah, and the trinitarian perspective
of Platonic Christianity, Lull developed an algebraic and analogical method for demonstrating spiritual and philosophical truths. Recognizing that
Deity is in itself unknowable and utterly unmanifest, like the Ain Soph of the Kabbalah, he held that divine manifestation begins with nine
Dignities or attributes of God. These correspond to the Sephiroth of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and the hadras (dignities and
divine names) of Islam, especially as developed by ibn Massara and al-'Arabi. By presenting them in his Ars Combinatoria, the fundamental
Dignities could be combined with relative predicates with mathematical precision. Showing that some combinations are possible whilst others are not,
Lull believed that he could begin on the common ground of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, and thus lead all honest thinkers to the Christian
perspective.

Lull started from the position of respect for those he sought to convince. He knew that both Muslims and Jews
were capable of exalted ethical lives and profound spiritual experience, and he freely borrowed from them lines of reasoning, stories and parables, and
even terminology. Like Francis, he would not blind himself with Christian dogma, nor did he fail for a moment to discern the dissolute condition of
much of Christendom. Nevertheless, he felt that all peoples should accept the special doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. Historians and
scholars shy away from dealing with the apparent paradox of an encompassing tolerance conjoined with doctrinal conviction. Given Lull's frequent
criticism of church politics and priestly abuses, one might suspect that within the limited framework of theological language, Lull wished to
demonstrate universal doctrines, especially that Deity manifests through creative triads whilst remaining wholly transcendent, and that manifest Deity
directly enters the world to awaken human beings to their spiritual possibilities. Lull's sense of the Divine is intimate and yet not personal in any
anthropomorphic sense. The Dignities, which he varies from time to time, are in general Bonitas (goodness), Magnitudo (greatness),
Eternitas (eternity), Potestas (power), Sapientia (wisdom), Voluntas (will), Virtus (virtue),
Veritas (truth) and Gloria (glory). Whilst his Ars Magna – Great Art – is the art of demonstration at the level of
intellectus, a way of finding truth, it is at the level of voluntas a way of training the will to love Truth, and at the level of
memoria it is an art of memory.

At first, Lull hoped the Dominicans would adopt his art of memory, but they rejected it in favour of their own.
Their art, drawn from the rhetorical tradition, concerned itself with architectural metaphors. A theatre could be constructed in such a way that its
internal geometry and embellishments could be used to 'store' arguments and conclusions for a speaker in a debate. As he disputed doctrines and theses,
his eye could pick up from the construction of the building the points he had associated with it. This art helped a speaker remember his argument.
Lull's art was of a wholly different order. The Dignities were to be meditated upon until one saw clearly their nature and meaning. The symbolic
permutations of the Dignities and relative predicates would help one recollect eternal truths and their applications. If the rhetorical art was an art
of memory, Lull's art was a mode of Platonic recollection. The Franciscans welcomed this art, as did Pico della Mirandola, Nicholas of Cusa and
Giordano Bruno during the Italian Renaissance.

About the time he finished his first great work, James II called him to Montpellier to see his writings. They
were examined with keen interest by James and several Franciscans who found them admirable. Whilst there, James II became king of Montpellier and
Majorca upon the death of his father in 1276. Almost at once Lull turned this event to advantage. He convinced James to found a college at Miramar in
northwest Majorca for the purpose of teaching Arabic and training missionaries. This was done, and thirteen friars – representing Jesus and the twelve
apostles – took up residence. The college flourished until Peter, king of Aragon and the elder brother of James, seized the island for his own. Once
Miramar was established, Lull travelled to Rome to ask for mission support from the pope. Just before he arrived, however, John XXI died and there was
a protracted struggle for the papacy. Rather than wait on events, Lull travelled and made contacts in numerous places. Indirect evidence suggests that
he may have journeyed as far as Turkey, Egypt and Abyssinia. After five years he returned home to translate his works into Latin and compose letters
and treatises at a phenomenal rate. And in the midst of these labours he wrote the great religious romance Blanquerna, the first European
novel and the first major work of literature written in a common tongue – Catalan – as well as the first great work in the magnificent Catalan literary
tradition. In this Lull preceded Dante, Froissart, Chaucer and Cervantes.

"Say, O Fool! Wherefore hast thou so great love?" Blanquerna answered: "Because long and perilous is the
journey which I make in search of my Beloved, and I must seek Him bearing a great burden and yet journey with all speed. And none of these things can
be accomplished without great love."

Blanquerna, in the story which bears his name, takes leave of his parents to venture into the world as a hermit. In an
enchanted forest he finds a beautiful hall in which the Ten Commandments sit mourning the daily disobedience of men. In time he meets Faith and Truth,
their sister Devotion and brother Understanding. He finds a monastery where he eventually becomes abbot. Because of his successful monastic reforms, he
is elected a bishop and re-orders his see according to the principles of the eight Beatitudes. Becoming pope, he sanctifies the whole world and
thoroughly reforms the church. Yet he renounces everything and retires to a hermitage to achieve divine illumination by successive stages of
meditation. Sharing the fruit of his hard-earned discoveries, he writes The Book of the Lover and the Beloved and the Art of
Contemplation, both of which stand on their own as spiritual treatises. The story is a mixture of realism and allegory. Whilst it contains the
easily recognized knights Sir Little-care-I and Sir What-will-men-say, it also depicts Lull as the Fool of Love before Blanquerna the Pope. Lull
appears as a fool because he is the troubadour of the Divine.

"O Beloved," said the Lover, "I come to thee, and I walk in Thee, for Thou dost call me."
"Thou, O my Beloved, art so great a Whole that Thou canst abound and be wholly of each one who gives himself to Thee."

In 1285 Lull went to Rome, and the newly elected Honorious IV was persuaded to establish schools in Arabic and related
languages in Paris and Rome. Lull proceeded to Genoa and found a boat sailing for Tunis. Though admittedly afraid, he embarked on a mission to the
infidel. In Tunis he debated with learned Muslims with sufficient success to merit the hostile attention of the caliph, who sentenced him to death and
then commuted it to banishment. He was stoned as he was led to the harbour and sent back to Genoa. By the time he had returned to Rome, something of
the scale of the Mongol invasions in the East had reached European ears. Lull saw that if the Muslim lands fell or capitulated, Europe lay open to a
force that might well destroy Christendom. He wrote, lectured, preached and pleaded for a crusade that would not conquer and claim but would occupy and
convert, for if the three monotheistic faiths could be drawn together under the banner of Universal Religion, they would be invincible in brotherhood.
Lull envisaged a union of divisive military orders under one king, who would thus unite Europe and rule with the guidance of a true pope – spiritual
father – who had cleansed the church and awakened the spiritual hearts of human beings. Like Plato in the Republic, Lull set forth a utopian
ideal and then began to work for its achievement by practical stages. The king of France and the Holy Roman emperor were involved in their own
politics, the pope was distracted, and Lull found an unsympathetic audience. Rather than give up, he wrote the Desconort, in which he argues
with a pessimistic hermit and wins him over to the view that truth can be demonstrated.

Around this time, he joined the third or lay order of the Franciscans, having been close to them for many years. In
1295 he composed his massive Tree of Science, filled with examples of various kinds of instruction. In it the future tense lodges with the
past tense at an inn, a beginning is told by a white end to dress in black, and a gold ring argues with the emerald for which it is the setting. By
1297 Lull is found in Paris opposing the Averroists, professors teaching Aristotle as understood by Averroes, with Platonic perspectives. He had
visited Paris several times and on each occasion was more honourably received than before. This time he met Duns Scotus, who deferred to him, and the
informal title Doctor Illuminatus was applied to him. He was formally confirmed in the degree of Master and his works were accepted for
instructional use. He crossed Europe again to win adherents to the Art, writing a number of simplified books making the Art accessible to the average
man and woman. In 1307 he left Paris for Bugia east of Algiers. Once more he disputed in public, was arrested and imprisoned. Whilst confined, he wrote
several works in Arabic and seems to have converted some of his gaolers. Again he was banished, being put aboard a ship bound for Pisa. Near its
destination the boat sank in a sudden storm, but amongst the very few survivors was Lull, now seventy-five years old. Having lost all the books he had
carried with him, he rewrote them from memory in Pisa.

In 1311 he successfully urged the Council of Vienne to create chairs of Hebrew, Arabic and Chaldean in five centres.
Though he remained active after this time, hagiography obscures the remainder of his life. He probably travelled to Tunis again in 1314, where he wrote
a number of works dedicated to the king of Tunis. The legend that he was martyred there, however, is based on forged documents. He seems to have
returned to Majorca and died early in 1316. He was buried in the church of San Francisco in Palma. Whilst he seemed to fail to attain all his goals,
save that of writing – about two hundred and forty of his two hundred and ninety works survive – he embodied the moral consciousness extolled by
Francis, re-invigorated the Order and anticipated the Renaissance in philosophy, theology and literature. Above all, he combined a life of
contemplation and action that displayed a new dimension of tolerance and civility in the societies of Europe. In 1915, on the six hundredth anniversary
of his death, a new epitaph was set up in the church of San Francisco, taken from his own words in the Tree of Love:

Here lies a Lover, who has died for his Beloved, and for love, who has loved his Beloved with a love that is
good, great and enduring, who has battled bravely for love's sake, who has striven against false love and false lovers, a Lover ever humble, patient,
loyal, ardent, liberal, prudent, holy and full of good things, inspiring many lovers to honour and serve his Beloved.